From the Iron Curtain to Gaza: The Tyrone woman carrying hope to the World’s most persecuted Christians

As papal charity Aid to the Church in Need publish their Religious Freedom in the World Report showing that one in ten Christians in the world faces persecution for their faith, the Irishwoman who heads the global charity Regina Lynch takes time out to speak with The Irish Catholic”s Garry O’Sullivan about the work of the foundation, her 45 years serving the most vulnerable, and how ACN›s helping hand is needed in the world more now than ever.

There’s a slight delay on the line as I prepare to do a zoom interview with the Executive President of the Pontifical Charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Regina Lynch, originally from Co. Tyrone. It gives me time to be nosey about the painting in the background. It’s a picture of religious sisters in the Andes riding mules up mountainous slopes she says. ACN helped them in the past, but Regina suspects they’ve swapped the mules for 4×4’s jeeps now. There’s also an icon on a distant wall. The painting and icon sum up ACN, prayer and action on behalf of Christians for Christians in difficulty. And Regina Lynch has seen it all over the last 45 years, from the Iron Curtain to the Pope in Iraq, she’s the institutional memory of ACN and it’s driving force.

Garry O’Sullivan: You’ve over four decades with ACN. When you look back, is there a moment or an encounter that convinced you that this was going to be your life’s calling?

Regina Lynch: Do you know, there were several. But I started here in 1980, and that was still the time of communism in Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain.

But it was the beginning of the end in some countries. And the first witnesses of that persecution started coming here to visit us in our offices [in Germany]. Bishops or priests who had been in the gulags of Stalin in Siberia, for example.

And it was just very impressive for me. And I think I wasn’t aware that there were so many modern-day martyrs, that people were willing to pay the ultimate price for their faith. I think that was one.

And the other thing was, I hadn’t been here a long time. And they asked me to take over the Africa desk. And to be very honest, I didn’t know where half the countries in Africa were but learnt by doing.

But the first trip I went on to Africa with my boss at the time, who was a Polish Byzantine priest. We went to Guinea. And it was the time when there was still a lot of Marxism in countries in Africa.

And there was a Marxist dictator in Guinea. And he, in one swoop, had exiled, thrown out all the missionaries, so that there was a very small number of local priests and sisters left. The archbishop had been imprisoned.

And the Vatican appointed one of the young priests as the archbishop. And that was, his name was Robert Sarah, who later became Cardinal Sarah. And I think he was made archbishop at the age of 32 years old, which was very exceptional.

And so, when we saw him, I think he was about 36 years old. We travelled with him for a week through Guinea.

He really impressed me. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders, you know, trying to help this Church that had been so reduced. And knowing that there was a price on his head as well.

So, I think meeting those people who came from situations where they were suffering persecution, made me think about my own faith, challenged me, like, what would I do if I was in their situation? And really encouraged me, made me believe, well, this is really something worth fighting for, and working for, and to see how I, through my role in this organisation, could try to help these churches.

Faith and conflict

Garry: With your Northern Irish background, did your early experience of faith and conflict shape how you understand the suffering of persecuted Christians elsewhere?

Regina: I grew up in the 60s and the 70s there, so it [the Troubles] was part of our everyday life. However, there was one instant when I was like 17, a girl from my class in school, her parents were shot dead in an attack by Protestants. And she herself was very badly wounded and the only way she survived, was because she pretended, she was dead already. And I just remember thinking to myself at the time was, you know, if somebody put a gun to my head, and says, are you Catholic or Protestant? You know, what would I say? And very honestly, I didn’t know the answer to that. So, I think it helped me identify a bit with the people that I later met, understanding what it was to be in a situation where you had to make choices, and you had to decide whether you were going to stand up for your faith, or you’re going to take the easier way out.

Iron Curtain to Middle East

Garry: When you walk into the ACN offices today, 45 years on, is there something that still moves you? What still kind of feels sacred about the work that you’re doing?

Regina: I think because, you know, 45 years later, there still is a lot of persecution going on in the world. It has changed somewhat; we had the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and we know there’s still a lot of struggles in that part of the world.

But what has happened now, which certainly wasn’t a topic when I came in first, was the growing influence, or let’s say the power of jihadism nowadays. I think we probably became aware of this more in the year 2000 and on. And then we had the fallout: we had the war in Syria, and then, of course, Iraq, the attack in the summer of 2014, by ISIS, and which was very, very dramatic for the Christians in Iraq, who fled the villages in the Middle East overnight, and finally went back again. But this really started a moment of unsettlement in the Middle East. And now we’ve seen it spreading rapidly in West Africa.

West Africa

And we, you know, we have witnesses here all the time. Just this week, we had a priest here from one of the dioceses in Burkina Faso, where only half the diocese is accessible for the bishop and the priests, because the rest is under attack by jihadists. So, we often have visitors here, or sometimes some of us go out to countries when it’s safe, and to see for ourselves, and to listen and to hear.  So, it’s not like persecution has gone away. Not at all. We have the religious freedom report, as you know, that has just come out.

And it deals with all faiths, not just with Christianity. But what’s really worrying is to see how the number of countries where religious freedom is no longer possible or guaranteed, actually is growing instead of diminishing. And many of those countries are where Christians are affected.

So, I think our work is never done. This is what drives me to continue to work for this organisation, to try to be a voice. You know, ACN, we always say we have three pillars, you know, information, prayer and action.

And information is what I’m doing with you today, obviously, but also getting our benefactors to pray for our project partners, in particular countries where there is persecution, discrimination, and then action on the projects that we fund all over the world to help. So, I think there’s still a lot for this organization to do in the world.

Pakistan is a terrible country for Christians

Garry: Over the years, you’ve visited some of the world’s most fragile places. Is there one particular journey or perhaps a person or a story that maybe you can’t forget or get out of your mind easily?

Regina: It’s a tough question. I think one, for example, one that really sticks in my mind is in Pakistan a number of years ago. I find Pakistan is one of the most terrible countries for Christians. And one of the reasons is the Christians are really trampled on. And they belong to the really the poorest sector of society there. They don’t have access to education, as well as the rest of the Muslim population.

I mean, the same thing can be said for the very small minority of Hindus that are there. But I’ve always been very, very impressed by the faith of these people, the Christians there. On one occasion, myself and a colleague were there in the Archdiocese of Lahore and halfway through the visit, we were introduced to this Christian man, whose name was Yusuf, who was a daily wage earner who worked on a farm for an absentee landlord. And Yusuf, who couldn’t read or write, had been playing a game of cards with his Muslim neighbours and a fight had broken out over the game of cards.

And they falsely accused him of burning a page of the Quran. And his immediate instinct was to run away. But then he went to the police and gave himself up because he had a family and children.

And the day we met him, he had just been released from prison by the police after three months of torture, when he’d been told that if he converted to Islam, he could go free. Thankfully, the Bishops’ Conference, the Justice and Peace Department with lawyers, had money to get him released. And when my colleague and I said to him, well, you know, why didn’t you give in?  And there was a crucifix on the wall behind us. And he looked at the crucifix and pointed to it. And he said, “well, he suffered so much more than I did.”

I think this was really, it was very humbling for us. Because, again, what would I do? Would I have the strength to do what Yusuf did?

And the other one was, I was very lucky in March 2021 to be part of Pope Francis’ delegation to Iraq.

I think it’s because ACN did so much to help the Christians return to the Nineveh Plains. And it was very impressive, the effect it had on the Christians. But one incident in particular in Qaraqosh, which is the main town in the Nineveh Plains, and the people were just, you know, the Christians were so much touched by Pope Francis’ visit there.

But in the main Church of Our Lady, he received several people. And one of the people he received was this woman, I think her name was Doha Sabah, a little woman dressed in black. And she told Pope Francis how, as ISIS moved into Qaraqosh, she and her family didn’t leave immediately.

And her son, her 14-year-old son and his cousin and several other boys were killed by an ISIS missile. And what she said to Pope Francis was, you know, she said, our faith teaches us to forgive. Now, she didn’t say, I have forgiven, but you could see she was struggling with this.

And he, Pope Francis, on the plane back to Rome when he met the press, he picked up on this, you know, when he said how important forgiveness is in our Christian life, and how we’re all drawn to it. And instead of being hypocrites and judging the other, you know, we should really think about that, about this call to forgiveness that we have. So, I think, as I said, there are many, many different ones, but I’ve never forgotten those two.

Hope and Gaza

Garry: When you meet Christians who’ve lost everything and still trust in God and keep their faith, what does that teach you about hope?

Regina: I think, you know, we always, we have hope, we should have hope as Christians. I was thinking also, you know, the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, for example, Stalin tried to eradicate it completely, and it went underground, and there were very few members of it left. And when you see today, the size of that Church and the strength of the Church, they have something like 800 seminarians at the moment. And you think, well, this is really a Church that rose up out of the ashes.

They’ve stayed there through this whole war and fighting and being told to leave, but they’ve stayed. And again, I think, you know, they didn’t give up”

So, we do have examples of hope, despite persecution and suffering, there are survivors. And even if it’s the little flock of Christians today, in Gaza, the little community of Christians in Gaza, I think it’s about 500 left now, who really did not give up. And they’ve stayed there through this whole war and fighting and being told to leave, but they’ve stayed. And again, I think, you know, they didn’t give up.

So, for Gaza, it was really giving funding so that for food and medical aid and so on, which the Patriarchate in Jerusalem is responsible then for getting that help in. And they do, they manage. It’s not easy, but they have managed to get help into that little community.

ACN Foundation

Garry: On a personal note, again, ACN was founded by a visionary priest and you’re one of the few women to inherit that mantle. What does it mean to you personally and institutionally as a woman?

Regina: I don’t look so much at, you know, is it a man or is it a woman doing this? I think it’s really, we’re driven, I think anybody who is driven by their faith and understands the challenge that God has given us and the challenge to show solidarity with the suffering, with the persecuted, I think all of us can do this.

We just have to really realise that it is a mission and that to always ask God for his help to do what he gives us and trusts to us, you know. I often think, as St. Paul says, we never have a burden more than we can carry. And I think that’s so true.

We’re not alone in this. I think what’s the great thing about ACN is we have so many benefactors who really do answer that call to prayer and that this is what helps us and carries us to do the job.

Keep it quiet

Garry: What’s the hardest decision you’ve had to make in your role? And how did you find peace with it?

Regina: How much we say as an organisation about what is happening in a country, because sometimes we are forced to keep quiet. Because if we spoke about it, we would be putting the local Christians, our project partners in danger. And so, it’s a continuing, ongoing debate here in the organisation between our people who work with the projects, with the project partners, and with our people in the communications and the fundraising, who want to say what the truth is.

But you know, sometimes it’s really, really difficult. So that’s why I can’t really talk about a particular country or people, but this comes up time and time again. Is it better we speak about it and put it out there? Or is it better we don’t speak about it to protect the people that we’re helping? You know, because have we the right to decide if these people will pay the ultimate price? It’s a really difficult one.

Garry: ACN has to navigate Vatican structures and volatile political realities. How do you protect ACN’s neutrality while staying faithful to your Catholic identity?

Regina: First of all, we don’t comment on political statements and things like that. I think what’s really important for us is, since I’ve worked for ACN, I’ve known or had the opportunity to meet four different Popes. And the Popes have always been, the Holy Father has always been the one that we follow, that we follow his direction.

And we were doing this even before we became a Pontifical Foundation in 2011. We always look to see what is the Pope of the day saying. The development of the organisation, we went from, you know, starting here in Germany, then to Eastern Europe, helping the Church behind the Iron Curtain.

And then in the early 1960s, if we started helping in Africa and Asia, Latin America, it’s because Pope St John XXIII also asked us to do that. So that’s answering and listening to the signs and the calls that are coming from the Pope at the time. I think it’s very important.’

Garry: What parts of the world do you feel we’re not paying enough attention to when it comes to the suffering Church?

Regina: I think I’m very lucky to work here because I’m aware of what’s going on in different parts of the world. I think in general, most people are not aware of what’s happening in many parts of the world.

I think the challenge today is really to get the message across to people, especially in this day and age of social media”

When I went with Pope Francis to Iraq, some of my friends said to me, ‘why are you going to Iraq? Why is the Pope going to Iraq? ‘There are no Christians in Iraq’. And I said, ‘well, hello! There have been Christians there since the beginning of the Church, almost the beginning of the Church’. I think there are countries like, for example, Burkina Faso, which most people, including myself before I started working here, it was called Upper Volta at the time, have no idea where it is. But there are terrible massacres, atrocities happening against not just Christians, but mainly Christians today.

Thousands of people have been killed so far by these jihadists. So even, you know, with Pakistan. I do think there are people who don’t know about this and maybe they’re not even aware what sort of faith there is in Pakistan.

I think the challenge today is really to get the message across to people, especially in this day and age of social media, where people want very short articles or videos or whatever. It is a challenge for us, even when we make our fundraising spots or little videos, to get enough information in a short time in order to inform people. But yeah, I would say West Africa, people are not aware, even the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there are terrible killings going on, northern Mozambique.

We see the spread of these Islamists, these jihadists in Africa is really, really worrying. Or, for example, we’ve got this in our report. For the first time in the report, we have talked about how organised crime is actually a threat to religious freedom, and particularly we talked about Mexico with the drug cartels.

The number of priests who have been killed in Mexico is alarming. Why have they been killed? Because the Church speaks out against what is wrong, what is morally wrong. And of course, what the drug cartels are doing is morally wrong.

So, if from the side of the Church there are priests speaking out against this, they pay the ultimate price for this, they’re being killed. And so, it’s very, very alarming in Mexico now. This is the first time we’ve really addressed this matter in a report.

Understanding God

Garry: Has your understanding of God changed through this work?

Regina: I think it is probably because before I came to work here I was brought up a Catholic , my mother a great Catholic, but I think I’m of a generation who didn’t really think of our faith so much but only when in situations where we met people who were challenged because of their faith – we have a God who doesn’t abandon us – people like Fr Ragheed Ganni went back to Iraq knowing full well he was putting his life in danger – there is a reason we don’t always know it or see it at the time.

Garry: As you look to ACN’s next decade, what gives you hope?

Regina: Situations that can improve. We see countries where there are converts, people coming to the faith in some of our western countries-there were 10,000 baptisms in France at Easter this year. So, we see the faith growing in some of our donor countries, we see it in some of the countries we help, despite persecution there are people turning to the Christian faith. This does give me hope, we have a wonderful pope in Pope Leo XIV and lucky to have an audience with him recently, we also have very good priests and leaders so we’ve every reason to be hopeful.

Garry: If you could sit down with your younger self, just starting at ACN in 1980, what would you tell her?

Regina: I would tell her ‘don’t go home!’ Because I spent my early years incredibly homesick. I wanted to go back to Ireland because I missed the family and the craic, every time I secretly thought of going back they offered me a new job!

Garry: Three quick fire questions for you:

The most courageous person you’ve ever met was…

John Paul II – he was amazing and brave coming out of that communist era.  Also, on my first trip to China I met an underground bishop who had just been to prison, he was bishop John Han, then was arrested again and died in prison, the authorities cremated his body before the family had a chance to retrieve it.

The hardest country to leave was…

Pakistan for the suffering, and I’ve been there numerous times. When the Danish cartoons had been published, we thought twice about going but decided to go and while we were there, Christian churches were attacked and burnt, we were lucky we could leave but Christians we met had to live there.

If you could tell the Pope one thing about the suffering Church, it would be…I

would say to him don’t forget it and if you can go visit it, we saw this in Iraq. Also, one of the lovely things was Pope Francis calling the parish in Gaza every evening.